


Carol Remembers

by NeasieB



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Memories, Photographs, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:53:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26647075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeasieB/pseuds/NeasieB
Summary: Carol doesn't only think about Pat on his Death Day.
Relationships: Carol/Pat (Ghosts TV 2019)
Kudos: 38





	Carol Remembers

Carol found the box of old photo albums in the loft when she was looking for Daley’s old toy cars. She remembered she and Maurice had put them up here when they moved to the new house soon after the wedding. They had some photos of Pat up in the house - after all he had not only been Carol's husband and Daley's father, but Maurice's best mate too. But they had agreed from the outset that they wouldn't make the house a shrine. "You have to move on", everyone had said.

She opened the first album. That one was taken not long before the accident, at Pat’s work dinner-dance. Look at the two of them all dressed up! It was over 35 years ago now. She had lived longer without Pat than with him. She wouldn't have thought that possible in those first terrible days and weeks after she had answered the door to find a sombre police officer on her doorstep. 

Here was a slightly older one, of Daley with his dad. They'd been fishing. Everyone had said "At least you've got Daley", as if having her young son made up for the loss of the man she'd been with since she was a teenager.

She remembered this one - Pat and Maurice together, taken on that boys’ day out to the railway museum. They'd brought her back a set of drinks coasters with the Flying Scotsman on. They were friends for years, right up until Pat’s death. Everyone said Maurice had been such a support to Carol afterwards, No one knew they'd been having an affair. She was glad Pat never found out. She had loved Pat, but after a few years of marriage she had been busy with the house and Daley, and Pat had had his work and the Boys' Adventure Troop. They were so comfortable with each other they hardly talked any more, felt as if they didn’t need to talk. She had drifted into the affair with Maurice almost by accident, just because he reminded her of a part of herself that wasn’t just Pat’s wife and Daley’s mum. 

Ah, now this one was taken a few months after the accident. She'd taken Daley away to a seaside holiday camp for a week. Nothing fancy and not anywhere they had ever been to when Pat was alive. Everyone had said a break away was just what they needed. Daley had loved it: eating ice cream, playing on the beach, and riding on the funfair. She had cried herself to sleep every night just as she did at home. She'd worried about what would happen to Daley, losing his father so young. She worried that he'd go off the rails. Perhaps that's why she'd married Maurice so soon after Pat's death - she wanted Daley to have a father figure. Not that she and Maurice weren't happy together. 

Here was one of Pat holding a baby Daley, glowing with pride. What was that written underneath in Pat’s writing? "Our son aged 3 weeks, He's got my legs!" Daley was a grown man with a baby son of his own now. She wished Pat could see the little grandson named after him.

Oh, here was the little paper cut out heart. How had that got into the box? She'd made two identical ones and put one in the coffin along with a picture Daley had drawn, and Pat’s glasses and Troop-leader's neckerchief. She remembered going through Pat’s wardrobe to choose the clothes for him to be cremated in, and the feeling of absolute disbelief as she did so. She’d kept the other paper heart. In the early days she’d hold it when she wanted to feel close to Pat, imagining him with the other. She sometimes wondered why Pat had never sent her a sign that he was OK. Some of her friends at the widows' support group said their lost husbands did - a favourite mug moved, a heart-shaped pebble found in the garden. But she had never had anything like that from Pat. He had been a loving husband and father, albeit a bit too obsessed with his role as Troop leader sometimes. Surely he would have sent her a sign if he could. He must be somewhere else, that was the only explanation. 

Maurice shouted up the stairs that he was putting the kettle on because Daley and the family had arrived. Carol sighed and put the albums back in the box, dabbing a kiss with one finger onto one of the photos of Pat. “ Visit you again soon, darling”, she whispered. Now where were those toy cars? Their grandson would love to have them.


End file.
